ESL Saigon

Writing a letter of complaint | ESL/EFL lesson plan

The focus of the lesson: Developing functional literacy
Size of the class: 20 students
Age: 18–36 years old
Level: Intermediate/B1
Length of the lesson: 90 minutes

Lead-in

Since the lesson is all about complaints a good lead-in will be asking students a few questions related to this topic. People like to complain, sometimes without a real reason.

Reading

Below is a letter sent by one friend of mine who rented a flat in Ho Chi Minh City. The letter is modified to meet the lesson requirements.

Task 1

Skim the letter to get an idea of the topic and write in the notebook what the letter is about.

Vocabulary

The teacher asks students to underline all the vocabulary words are unknown then check the meaning of unknown words in your dictionary or ask the teacher. Read the letter again.

Matching parts of the letter with their correspondent functions

Below is a list of functions. Read the list of functions then write a number next to the parts of the letter which match these functions.

Closing

Writer’s signature

Justification of complaint

Writer’s address

Date

Request for action

Greetings

Identification of complaint

Answering questions

Read the letter again and answer the following questions in written form:

What is Dennis complaining about?

What justification does Dennis give for his complaint?

What action does Dennis want Madam Hang to take?

Making notes before writing a letter of complaint

Before writing your own letter, make notes on a piece of paper:

Which authority you will need to send your letter to

Find out the name of the person you will need to sent your letter to

Subject of the letter

Content of the letter (main ideas very brief)

Problem

Details

Action requested

Closing phrases

Yours

Writing a draft of the letter

Once the notes are written on a piece of paper students can start working on the first draft of the letter. Below is a list of words and expressions your students might find helpful in completing the task.

Writing the final draft

Once the first draft is completed students discuss it in small groups, with whole class or with the teacher then write the final draft.